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Attack of the Family Vacation Photos: Part One

Watson and I sneaked/snucked/snacked over to the Mocha Moose Cafe this afternoon so I could get my Internet fix* and she could get a caramel macchiato.

I know it’s Poetry Wednesday, but I’m pre-empting it this week because the only poem that comes readily to mind** is a canine-centered parody of Joyce Kilmer’s “Trees” that I heard once and no one needs that.***

Instead, I thought I’d share a montage of the vacation so far, with—and I can see your surprise from here—commentary.

I know I joked about the wilds of Wisconsin, mostly because no one told me exactly where we were going, but our Cabin In The Woods is actually a nice-sized cottage on the waterway between Eagle and Otter Lakes near Rhinelander, “Home of The Hodag,” about which more later.

The interior is sort of Hunter’s Eclectic:

Or, as Watson put it, “Vegan Nightmare,”^ but underneath the fur accents, it’s a great place.

The place does come with a wonderful writing spot. I owe seven pages to the glider to the right of the swing—and to a generous application of Deep Woods Off, I won’t lie.

There’s a great view of the river from there,^^ and If I’m very still, the chipmunk who lives in the tree to the left will come down and investigate the firepit, until I do something dumb, like lift the camera to take a picture of him.

But I can still see boats of all types passing through on their way to and from the lakes.

Jada The Dog likes to share the spot with me, though she wishes we hadn’t left her outdoor dog bed back home:

She’s been enjoying the outdoor smells—checking her pee-mail, as Janie says all too often—and receiving a daily foot massage, while Sunny entertains her with a display of modern dance and bubble-wand mastery.

It’s a dog’s life, isn’t it?

But we humans are having our own kind of fun, too. We rented a boat yesterday—pontoon, not pirate—and went out on a three-hour tour of the various lakes.

The First Law of Vacation.^^

Some of the boats tend to ignore these and zip through our waterway, regardless, inspiring the new family saying:

Don’t be a waker!

Works on all kinds of levels doesn’t it?

Here’s a requisite landscape shot, which never does much for anyone unless it’s taken in Hawaii, but it’s my blog and it was a stunning day, and this is only one of the thirty or so I took, so there and count yourselves lucky:

The kids had their own idea about what constituted a stunning sight:

Don’t take any wooden eagles!

Seriously. The owners don’t like that.

The area is called Eagle River, and the motif is, unsurprisingly, everywhere. But they call it that for a good reason—right across the waterway in front of my writing spot is a bald eagle nest. I’ve seen them swoop into the trees from overhead—again, stunning.

We also had our first bonfire the other night. My Dad, the Eagle Scout Leader, built the fire after a few false starts.

Success! And popcorn!

Mallow Bomb!

That’s what I’m talking about.

And now, if you don’t mind, I’m going to take a page out of Watson’s book—not literally, because it’s from my library and checked out on my card—and watch a little scenery between long, slow blinks.~

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*My phone allows me to check my e-mail and occasionally check blogs, but gets testy when I try to reply or comment, so if I owe you one or the other, my sincere apologies—I’ll try to get to everything before the family notices we’re missing we have to get back.

**Not entirely true, but I’m saving the other for next week, because it deserves its own post.

***In case I’m wrong, it’s the one that starts, “I think that I shall never pee/on anything as lovely as a tree . . . ” and degenerates from there. Google the rest, ’cause I’m on the clock, here.

^We were going to put a drip pan under the bear’s mouth as a joke, but thought it might freak out Sunny.

^^Except for this one young tree that I would cut down in a minute if this were my property and I didn’t feel so terrible for even thinking things like, “I’m all for the environment, but it’s blocking my view.”

^^^I’m planning on finding one of these for the couch back home, because my kids still have no respect for the sanctity of naps.

~While my kids—according to my husband, who is texting me images as I type—are out enjoying themselves in their own way:

The writing spot is perfect, and the requisite landscape shot is beautiful. We stayed in a cabin that is very similar for a mountain trip, but it didn’t come with that dope bear. The fire pit is wonderful. Hope I get to read said writing. 😉